


Having No Light

by Kalloway



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:02:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21999424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalloway/pseuds/Kalloway
Summary: Leon finds a remnant of Organization XIII's crazed ideas. Claiming that he owes Sora a favor, he adopts a nameless stray.
Relationships: Leon/Riku Replica (Kingdom Hearts)
Kudos: 4
Collections: The Lemonade Cafe





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Originally posted by sockpuppet J.Synth."
> 
> I think I was posting this to the community that was created just to ban my Riku/Mickey fics.

"Riku?" Leon knelt down to shake the shoulder of the still figure, completely unsure why Sora's companion was slumped in one of Radiant Garden's alleyways.

"Not my name," came as a thin reply. At least the young man wasn't dead. Though as Leon pulled 'Riku' to his feet, he could almost believe the claim.

Still, as thunder rolled overhead, Leon wasn't going to waste any time arguing.

The trip back to his house was quiet, save the rumbling above and the sound of the rain on the paving stones he was mostly dragging 'Riku' along. Every few seconds 'Riku' would try to take a few steps and fail, clutching helplessly at Leon's jacket and whimpering like a man in intense pain.

Finally, the dead weight too much for him, Leon simply scooped the teen up into his arms and carried him the last few blocks to his house.

"I'm Leon," Leon said as he slammed the wooden door behind him and glanced at the too-skinny form laying still in front of the electric furnace that was thankfully putting off a useful amount of heat. "You have to have a name."

"No." A bit of movement, pained. "I'm not real. I believe that now. I was never real. I died..."

Leon shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the single hook on the wall. Either towels or a blanket - he wasn't sure. And a healer, despite the rain. Surely the rambling was just a fever.

"You need to get those wet clothes off," Leon said. "I'll help you, since you can't..."

"Can't I go back to being dead?" Aqua eyes met Leon's, pleading. They were not the eyes of the same young man that Sora had introduced him to.

"You aren't Riku," Leon said, slipping his hands under the tight material of the teen's shirt and pulling it upward, trying not to notice cold skin against his own warm hands.

"Told you that."

"I know," Leon said. "But either way, you need something dry to wear. And a strong healer."

He could feel each rib under his hands, prevalent as though the teen was half-starved.

"Don't help me..." Hands grabbed at his, weak and almost traitorous as they fell away a moment later. "Warm."

Carefully, Leon pulled a few blankets from where they were hiding the tattered remains of a half-unstuffed easy chair and slid the young man onto one of them, trying to look away even as he pulled soaked pants over a swollen and likely broken ankle.

"Stay here," Leon ordered, racing to the bathroom to grab a towel.

"Can't really go anywhere else," the youth rasped in reply.

But when Leon returned, he noticed that his guest had moved, curled closer to the heater and tangled in the blankets.

"Here," Leon murmured, kneeling down to dry the teen's hair, almost surprised at the slight purr of appreciation that snuck from behind the otherwise indignant lips of the youth.

"If you promise not to leave, I'll get someone to look at your ankle," Leon said once he'd thoroughly soaked the towel.

"I can't walk."

"Your body is covered in bruises and scratches and I think you have a broken ankle," Leon commented. "But you're alive. I don't think that not being able to walk would hinder you if you wanted to leave."

"Don't even want to be alive."

"Stay there," Leon said as he stood. Grabbing the pile of wet clothing from the floor, he threw it in the general direction of the kitchen, hearing it smack wetly against the tile. Aerith didn't live far and he knew that she'd be more than willing to do a little patch work on the teen, even if she couldn't do much with his ankle.

* * *

"Kurai," Aerith muttered, tying the bandages around the young man's arm. "Hmm. I think that's not a bad name for you."

Leon simply sat back, surrounded by gauze and alcohol. What Aerith had not been able to heal with magic, she had taken to patching up with bandages. Even the teen's ankle was wrapped - not broken but instead badly sprained, something just as painful and crippling as a break.

"Kurai?" he echoed, glancing over at Leon as though Leon would explain. Leon simply shrugged. He'd learned over the years to not question Aerith or the things she said.

"From an archaic language that both Ansems chose to pepper their works with," Aerith continued. "It means 'dark'. Or, literally, 'having no light'."

There was an uneasy silence for a moment.

"Scissors," Aerith requested, holding her hand back to where Leon was sitting. He handed the implements to her and nodded.

"Kurai. It isn't bad," Leon said. "For someone with no name found during a thunderstorm at night."

"Kurai. Fine."

"It is a good name, isn't it?" Aerith giggled. "Has all the same letters as Riku's plus one."

"How..."

"She just knows things," Leon interrupted. "Don't question it."

"And Mr. Kurai is definitely staying here with you," Aerith said. "Absolutely no walking for at least two weeks and another two weeks of crutches after that. Foot elevated."

Leon raised an eyebrow. He hadn't exactly intended to keep his stray. "Me?"

"You have more room than I do," Aerith said as she snipped one last bandage and tied it. "If you can get Mr. Kurai some clothing - a robe should do - I'll see what I can make from whatever pitiful things live in your fridge."

"Fine," Leon agreed, getting to his feet and heading back down the short hall to his bedroom. He didn't have an exceptionally large wardrobe to begin with, but he knew he had something that would work for Kurai.

A little digging and he'd found it, a gift from Sora from a land with dragons. Colorful silk poured over his fingers as he pulled the robe from his closet - he'd never even tried it on despite Sora's pleading, but he could easily imagine Kurai looking at home in the regal garment.

Aerith had already started digging things from the kitchen when Leon returned and he could smell the dead odor of whatever he'd last spilled on the stove being burned away.

"Here," Leon said, holding the silk down to where Kurai was propped on his side, watching Aerith in silence.

Kurai hissed in response as he reached upward, pulling his arm back quickly. "Can't..."

"Right, sorry." At least with Kurai covered, he no longer had to avert his eyes from bruises that strayed down Kurai's body.

And somehow he managed to get Kurai up onto the sofa, equally threadbare but not losing as much stuffing as the matching chair. His eyes met Kurai's one last time as he gathered up the damp blankets from the floor and marched off to hang them in the equally damp basement to ferment until the sun decided to force away the night's storm.

Aerith was humming when he returned, stirring something that smelled fairly good from a distance. Better than her usual cooking, at least. He knew not to let Kurai eat much, no matter how hungry the teen was.

"Why?" Kurai asked softly, halfway through watching Leon pack up Aerith's medical kit.

"Why what?"

"Why help me?" Kurai demanded, reaching down limply in Leon's direction as though Leon had stopped paying attention to him. Leon was curious just how needy the young man was. It was almost amusing, really, how tangled Kurai was between wanting to live and wanting to die.

"I think Sora would want me to," Leon replied as he snapped the case shut. "And since I lost count of the running tally of how many times Sora and I have saved each other, it's safer to assume that I owe him one."

"Sora..." Kurai said almost wistfully. "He won't come here, though."

"No," Leon said. "He's in his own world. With Riku."

"Ramen!" Aerith announced loudly, holding out bowls. "Mr. Kurai, can you use chopsticks? Leon doesn't seem to have bothered washing any silverware this year."

"Yeah," Kurai said. "Riku could, so I can. I think."

"You don't have to be Riku," Leon said as he retrieved a pair of bowls from Aerith. "From now on, you're Kurai."

Leon stayed on the floor to eat, offering Aerith the easy chair. When Aerith had first arrived back at the house to find Kurai curled even closer to the heater, she'd managed to wrangle a bit of his story from him.

And if Leon hadn't dealt with the Organization firsthand, he might not have believed that one amongst them was capable of creating a perfect replica of a person. But these were the men who created heartless and sacrificed themselves.

"Eat slow," Aerith ordered Kurai, watching him closely. "When was the last time you had a good meal?"

"Never," Kurai replied. "I remember eating but... I've never eaten."

"Never?" Aerith repeated. "Eat very slowly, then. Wouldn't want you to get it wrong."

"Aerith..." Leon didn't want to antagonize Kurai - obviously Kurai had enough problems without Aerith heaping on an extra layer of tactless direction.

But Kurai laughed. "Didn't get anything else right. Might just screw this up, too."

Leon resigned himself to his noodles. Kurai would be a work in progress. And likely the end of his sanity.


	2. Chapter 2

Watching Kurai stumble through his half of the insanely large box lunch that he'd picked up for them, Leon couldn't help but chuckle. He couldn't quite believe that the real Riku was so unskilled with chopsticks - enough that an equal amount of food made it to Kurai's lap as his mouth.

Still, after a week on Leon's sofa, being visited by every walk of citizen that Radiant Garden had, Kurai had at least lost a bit of his negative attitude. Yuffie seemed to be his favorite visitor, if only because she brought stories and would eagerly act them out.

But other than what little flits of emotion Kurai showed when in the presence of others, Leon hadn't managed to even begin to unravel the mystery of just why a happily deceased clone would suddenly be brought back and then dumped into a back alley. Unless that hadn't been the beginning...

"What do you remember?" Leon asked, not bothering to wait until Kurai paused between bites.

Kurai looked at him coldly, aqua eyes meeting his and threatening ice.

"I told you, I don't remember much. I probably don't want to - anything I remember of my own existence... Not his... There's nothing worth remembering," Kurai said before shoveling rice into his mouth and taking his time chewing. "Why should I keep any memories from then?"

"Are you going to keep your memories of us - of Radiant Garden?" Leon queried as he set his own dishes to the side of the chair.

Pausing with a piece of tuna perfectly speared on the end of one of the chopsticks, Kurai just smiled his usual eerie smile that didn't look quite genuine.

"That makes it sound like I'm going to leave."

Leon found himself lost for words. Up until that moment, he'd always assumed that once Kurai was properly healed, he'd be quick to find a place more exciting. Especially since he was alone much of the time when Leon headed off to help with reconstruction efforts.

And a wheelchair kindly built by Cid didn't help much. Other than getting Kurai outside for air, the sheer amount of stairs in Radiant Garden left quite a few places inaccessible.

"You're going to stay here? In Radiant Garden?" Leon finally managed. "I though you'd want to leave."

"I think you missed the part where I have nowhere to go," Kurai said quickly, his tongue flicking at the end of now-bare chopsticks. "You have a spare bedroom - once I can walk, I can work."

Somehow, the thought of Kurai as a permanent housemate wasn't what Leon had intended. Not at all. In only a week he'd managed to push Leon to his limits more than once.

"But..."

"Don't worry, I'm used to rejection." Kurai really did sound hurt and when he didn't meet Leon's eyes, Leon softly sighed.

"I just hadn't considered keeping that option," Leon said. He stood and gathered his dishes to take to the kitchen. "So do you need anything while I'm up?"

"Is that your way of agreeing without agreeing?" Kurai asked.

"Maybe," Leon replied. Once Kurai was mobile, perhaps he could take cooking lessons from Tifa and actually make himself useful. Though if he could pick up the muscle and strength of his original, he'd be quite a force on the construction crew as well. "Okay."

"Okay?" Kurai asked softly - almost too softly for Leon to hear.

"Yeah."

* * *

Leon woke to the sound of thunder. The faintly glowing hands of the analog alarm clock he refused to throw away despite it not working half the time suggested it was a little after two in the morning. He saw no reason to disagree with the clock - it was late and dark, at least.

But as the thunder rumbled low in the distance, Leon couldn't quite fall back to sleep. He couldn't pinpoint the nagging feeling until he thought back to the last storm, when he'd found Kurai. Usually Kurai slept a ridiculous amount of time, but his body was slowly healing from the abuse endured wherever he had been.

"Kurai?" Leon whispered as he stepped into the main room. Lightning lit up the room for a second, revealing Kurai huddled at one end of the sofa, blanket over his head. "Kurai..."

"I'm not scared of the storm," Kurai said quickly, flipping the blanket down just enough to address Leon. "I'm cold."

"I'll turn the heat on," Leon replied, turning on a lamp before walking over to where the electric heater's controls were. "Give it a few minutes to warm up."

"Earlier..." Kurai began, slowly untangling himself from his blankets, "you said you hadn't thought that I would stay."

"I was basing my opinion on what I knew of the Riku I met. But he..."

"He had people to go to. I don't. I just sit here all day and try to pick out which memories are mine and which are real and which are just things that were put there," Kurai said.

"Some of them must hurt," Leon said.

"That's why I don't want to keep them," Kurai commented quickly. "I almost feel bad for him, in a way."

"Riku?"

"Yeah," Kurai replied. "Riku. I hope he figures it all out."

"Sora, you mean."

"Exactly. And if you noticed..."

"There's this strange period after an adventure," Leon began slowly. "Where everyone has to rediscover who they are and how their relationships with one another are going to work."

"When you all came back here, right? From another world," Kurai nodded.

"Maybe Sora will be lucky enough to get them both," Leon concluded, feeling a little weird talking about the potential sexual adventures with the duplicate of one of those involved.

And then a bit more of the puzzle clicked into place - one of the things that Kurai wasn't saying. That despite the intense rivalry Riku had with Sora, there was also so much more. Feelings that had carried over, spilling into Kurai when they weren't even his to have.

No wonder Kurai wanted new memories to block out the old.

"Kurai?"

"What?" Kurai asked, finally settling back to a sprawled position on the sofa. Rain pounded heavy on the windows, but he seemed not to care.

"You don't need to keep remembering things," Leon said. "Things that aren't yours to remember, at least."

Thunder crashed loudly overhead, making Kurai jump.

"Storms..." Leon muttered.

"Things always wrap around," Kurai replied. "History repeats."

"Not if you learn from it," Leon said.

"Did you?"

"Learn from it?" Leon finally sat down on the floor, leaning back against the sofa and stretching his legs. He only wore a pair of pajama bottoms, not at all uncomfortable as Kurai appraised his scars. "I think I finally did."

"Really?" Kurai asked, reaching a bandaged hand down to rest on Leon's shoulder. Aerith was going to come in the morning to change those bandages. Leon hadn't forgotten that little fact, even if the contact momentarily sent his mind spinning.

"Even if you can't send him on his way and wish him the best in person, you can at least do it in your mind," Leon explained. "And then walk - metaphorically - forward."

* * *

"Leon must be taking good care of you," Aerith commented after pulling off the first arm's worth of bandages. "Not many bruises. Doesn't look like you'll have bad scars, either."

"Some of that is your doing, though," Kurai replied, giving her the closest to a sincere smile that Leon had yet to see from the young man.

"Oh, Leon, a true flatterer. And what a change from last week."

"Not my influence," Leon stated from where he was both attempting to clean the stove from Aerith's attempt at breakfast and watch the pair on the floor.

"I think you're ready for Leon to run you a bath, actually," Aerith said. "Clean yourself up and see how you feel. And he will never admit to it, but Leon is very good at combing hair."

"Yuffie just pulled at the knots and Cid was too busy working," Leon explained. "But she's probably right. I do remember picking the knots out of her hair more than once."

Kurai just chuckled, looking down at his own pale skin as it was slowly exposed.

And once Leon had the last bit of burned pancake batter cleared away, he headed towards the bathroom. As long as he didn't have to wash Kurai himself, he'd be fine.

But if he did...

Somehow, Kurai wasn't quite real to him yet - something permanent and tangible. Something that could show emotion and feel, even if the components weren't quite right.

But Kurai wasn't a something, after all; he was a someone.

Letting water run over his fingers and down the drain until he had the temperature adjusted properly, Leon couldn't but ponder that difference. When had he first come up with that?

He had woken up still sitting against the sofa, his body more than warm enough with the heater turned on. And Kurai had moved his hand ever so slightly, to clutch onto dark hair.

But he would not take advantage of the lonely. Especially not when he knew he was likely just lonely himself.


	3. Chapter 3

"I have had enough heaving bosoms for the better part of this week," Kurai announced from the sofa before Leon had even gotten in the door.

Leon shrugged. "I think the most interesting thing I have is a history of Vieran armor and weaponry. You're the one who asked if Aerith had any books she could lend you."

"Yes, and I've learned to regret that, quickly," Kurai noted. "Do all girls read that stuff?"

Leon kicked off his boots. "Yuffie rather enjoyed the history of Vieran armor and weaponry."

Kurai frowned.

"Would you like me to ask if Cid has anything more appropriate for an idle-minded young man?" Leon tried with a smile. He knew exactly what Cid's normal reading material consisted of and with any luck wouldn't have to smuggle any of it home for Kurai's perusal.

"No," Kurai said quickly. "Perhaps, um... the weaponry?"

"Thought so."

"Cloud stopped by," Kurai said a few seconds later. "He wants you to meet him in the castle basement later. Tear out... 'that stuff'."

"Is that what he's been up to?" Leon asked. "He's been gone for awhile. Again. How do you...?"

"I remember him," Kurai admitted. "He kept calling me 'Riku' and then frowning because I wasn't."

"I'm sorry," Leon quickly said. He knew how much slips-of-the-tongue bothered Kurai, even though they were proving unavoidable at times.

"You don't have to apologize for him," Kurai commented. "He seemed kinda happy when I said I was a replica. Muttered something. Guess he didn't quite figure out that I remember him. I did call him by name."

Kurai shifted, swinging his legs down to skim along the floor. He stretched. With just a few of the bandages he'd had only a week prior, he was looking far healthier than Leon wanted to admit.

In a way, his guest had to be one of the best things about returning home each evening. If not the best.

"May I ask what you remember?" Leon asked as he sat down in the chair across from Kurai. "Of Cloud. We're known each other for a long time."

Kurai frowned for a moment before smiling. "You sure you want to know that?"

Leon raised an eyebrow. "I'll see if I can bring you a book or something."

"And dinner?"

"I'm not working tomorrow," Leon commented. "I'll meet Cloud after dinner. What do you want?"

"Less memories that aren't mine."

Digging for a minute in the hall closet for books he'd not-quite unpacked after his last move, Leon found the thick, beautifully illustrated volume he'd been seeking.

As if Kurai needed any more ideas.

* * *

Cloud, if anything, was exceptionally skilled in destroying everything. When Leon figured out where the noise was coming from, he wasn't surprised to see that Cloud had already gone to work as a one-man demolition crew in the large heartless-production chamber.

Why they hadn't destroyed the machinery before was anyone's guess. But it seemed senseless to keep it - especially knowing full well that it had been functional til the end.

"Cloud!" Leon called, pulling his gunblade from his side and holding it out.

"Leon." Cloud turned, his eyes narrow. He jumped over a pile of rubble, metal meeting metal as he swung his sword to crash against Leon's blade.

A perfectly pulled parry.

"When did you come back?"

"When did you start taking in strays?" Cloud asked in response.

Leon sighed. "You don't have to stay here. You can stay with me."

"On the floor?"

"In my bed, like when we were seven. You were seven," Leon corrected. "I was ten. Unless you've caught cooties from wherever you went."

Cloud kicked a piece of decimated metal.

"Fine. Cid's paying a good price to have this cleaned out. Thought you might want to help."

Leon nodded. He knew. He'd set the entire thing up, save for finding Cloud to accept the offer. That was purely serendipity.

"And I get a percentage?" Leon asked as he started surveying the scrap-metal. Dragging it all out would be the hard part.

"Yeah," Cloud said. "'Course. Not sure what this kinda scrap is good for, though."

"Neither am I," Leon admitted.

* * *

The demolition, thankfully, went smoothly. Dragging the metal out for scrap and the rest for hauling off to the wastelands would have to wait, though. It was the middle of the night by the time Leon and Cloud made their way to Leon's house. The mood had continued to lighten as they walked, leaving them laughing almost too loudly for the time of night. Any bystander would assume they'd been drinking, not just bringing up tale after tale of the other's spectacular childhood failures (because even in the instances of success, they tended to get caught by someone's mother).

Leon hushed Cloud when they stepped into his house, though, well aware that Kurai was asleep on the sofa.

"You're gonna stay, right?" Leon asked. Cloud nodded, his silhouette barely visible in the faint light coming in from the street.

Falling asleep beside Cloud seemed about as natural as any other thing - especially when dead tired and not entirely picky when it came to whom was beneath the other half of his blanket. Over the years he'd been forced to share with Cid, Aerith, Yuffie, at least three so-called wizards and probably the better part of a half-dozen others, including at least one faerie.

And certainly, he didn't even pause to think how the situation might look to Kurai.

Only when he woke to the mid-morning sun slowly toasting his face did Leon consider what he'd done. Without thinking, he'd invited Cloud to stay with him after he'd already promised Kurai the spare bedroom. He rolled over and out of the bed, peeling off the clothing he hadn't already discarded and heading towards the bathroom.

Loathe as he was to admit it, the shower was a nice, isolated place to think and besides, he needed a shower about as badly as he ever had.

Kurai was still better on the sofa, for the time being, Leon decided as he let the spray of water from the shower wash over him. He turned a bit, getting his hair wet but not really bothering to reach for the soap. Cloud wouldn't stay for too terribly long. Cloud didn't stay anywhere for long. Not even in the darkness.

Besides, there wasn't even a bed in the spare room, just some piles of unsorted debris, things that had been there when he'd purchased the house, and dust. Mostly dust.

By the time he'd gotten out of the shower and dried off, Leon could hear movement elsewhere in the house. He wondered if Aerith had invited herself over again, or if Kurai was attempting to crash about on his own. It had to be late - he should have checked on Kurai first.

A bit of guilt pulled him out to the main room, where Kurai was patiently flipping through the Vieran armor and weaponry book.

"Morning," Leon said. He frowned a bit when Kurai's gaze met his. There was something there that made him uneasy. He wondered if he and Cloud had woken the teen during the night or if it was something else.

"Bath sounds nice," Kurai said as he closed the book. "Help me?"

Leon nodded before crossing the room to scoop up Kurai. Even with proper nutrition, he was keeping his doll-like weight and physique.

"Did we wake you up?" Leon asked as he set Kurai down on the edge of the tub and turned to dig for the bag to go over Kurai's injured foot to keep the bandages dry. The rest could be taken off and the wounds beneath cleaned. It was a slow task, but Leon didn't mind as long as he stayed focused.

Kurai reached over to turn on the water, running his fingers under it loosely and smiling to himself.

"Cloud?" he asked almost suddenly. "Is he still asleep?"

"Probably," Leon said. "He'll be staying here for a bit, too. But he'll leave again. He always does."

"I know," Kurai said flatly. "I remember."

Leon nodded and reached to help Kurai untie and remove the sweatpants he'd pretty much adopted as his preferred form of clothing. He'd be stuck in the beautiful silk robe for the day, however, because he wasn't the only thing that needed to be washed.

Each time he bathed Kurai, he had to focus on the trivial things - bandages, washing Kurai's hair, anything but the raw lust that Kurai managed to stir in him.

"I like that book," Kurai said a minute later, as he undid some of his own bandages and frowned at seeing blood on a few of them. "Better than the bodice-ripping and such."

"I knew a pair of Viera women once," Leon explained as he leaned back against the wall. The tile floor was cold, but he didn't pay attention to it. Instead he simply watched Kurai ease himself into the half-filled tub and shudder briefly at the water temperature before reaching with both hands to adjust it. "There's nothing quite like being defeated in battle by someone wearing stiletto heels."

Kurai chuckled and slid down to get his hair wet. "I can imagine. I think. I think I can imagine."

Leon smiled ever so slightly. That had to be the most positive thing he'd heard Kurai say during the last few days.

"You'll be able to walk again soon," Leon said. "Maybe you can go find a nice Viera girl of your own."

Kurai frowned. "I thought I was staying here - with you."

And that was exactly when Leon realized that perhaps his one-sided feelings were not so one-sided after all.


End file.
